The Education of Dean Winchester
by Madi Holmes
Summary: Weechesters story. Dean's misadventures in reading and how he entertained his brother with odd reading choices and learned how to get his brother interested in stories too.


The Education of Dean Winchester

Dean's eyeballs were bleeding. All red-rimmed and tired. The television droned out some My Little – Smurfs Care Bears Pony cartoon, and it left him a zombie. These cartoons bored the ever snot out of him, but Sam liked them well enough, so Dean let the machine drone.

And then it fritzed out. The channels disappearing in a sine wave of snow and fuzz. Dean scrambled up, flipped the rabbit ears this way, that, cranking them around on the Zenith, flipping the dials to see if anything would come through. Finally PBS came on, bright and soft.

Rolling his eyes, he plopped back on the floor, tuning out Reading Rainbow as Sam got drawn in, became entranced as the show read him a book. Then Dean became interested as the episode was about Egyptian mummies, and those were always cool.

The show finally ended, Dean enjoying it far more than he wanted to, and then Mr. Rogers came on. The seven year old groaned, far too old for the quiet man in his cardigan and shoes. Dean finally just groaned, got up, and decided to make an early dinner as Sam started humming quietly along.

Dean was just draining the macaroni when Sam wandered into the kitchenette area, kicking a shelf. "I'm hungry. And bored."

Dean shrugged, plated food for them both, and plunked it all on the chipped table.

"I wanna read," Sam announced around a mouth of ham and cheese.

"No, you don't."

"I do! I wanna read everything. I hate books now, because I can't read. But when I do read, I'll love them."

Dean rolled his eyes, bemused. Finally got an idea and scrambled to his bookbag. Brought out his reading textbook, and picked out a Ray Bradbury short story from the science fiction section. "Here, eat and then I'll read to you."

Sam took it as a challenge, chugged down the macaroni and cheese, burped, took too-big bites on his sandwich, choked, burped, and grinned.

Dean frowned, sighed. "Eat, Sammy. Not kill yourself," he admonished, but propped up the book, started to read aloud as he began to eat his own dinner.

The two had were out of books. A new town, a new motel, they hadn't managed to make it to the library yet, and Dean's imagination was failing him. Television was still great for the most part, but daytime sucked after The Price Is Right had ended with the only thing on being soap operas, the news, and Bob Harris. Dean just couldn't stand watching any more happy trees.

"Here!" Sam yelled, hopping on the bed. "I've found a book! Read it to me!"

Dean looked down at the title, crinkled his nose, peered back up at his brother. "The Bible?" He cocked an eyebrow, incredulous. "Really?"

"Yes! Is a book!"

Dean huffed, out on a dramatic showing, but quickly settled on the bed with Sammy snug under his armpit. The older brother took a few minutes to translate the writing for his little brother, but finally found a rhythm. Reading it down so his brother could understand, skipping words that he himself couldn't really grasp. "If you do well, shall you not be accepted? and if you don't do well, sin is at the door. And unto you will be his desire, and you will rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and..."

Dean stopped cold.

"What?" Sam asked, all bright eyed.

"And slew him." Dean replied lowly.

"What?"

"He ki-. You know. Let's do something else."

"What did Cain do?" Sam whined, becoming angry, unable to comprehend. "He...killed his brother?"

"How'd you know that?" Dean snapped back, growing angry himself.

"He did, Dean. I don't like that. Fix it, Dean. Make it not happen."

"Umm," Dean replied, not knowing how to do that, then realized that Sam didn't know any better. "I read it wrong. He didn't."

"He didn't?"

Dean faked a smile. "No, they're brothers. That's stupid. I read it wrong. I meant he glued himself to his brother. Accidentally. So they could never leave each other."

"You're lying," Sam sniffled.

"Never," Dean replied earnestly, full of love, finally tickling his brother until the boy was sweaty, over-stimulated, and had completely forgotten what had happened.

The next day, Dean made it a point to find the nearest library, and dragged/carried his brother to it. They managed to get four books between the two of them. Dean finding things he thought Sam would like, because he knew he'd like them, and Sam getting things that he knew he'd like even though Dean thought they were too young for him.

Making their way back to the hotel room, the two boys looked inside the low motel room, then back outside, then back at the lime green walls, and purple bedspread. Dean felt nauseous, grabbed one book, and tossed the others onto the floor inside. He sat down next to the railing, dangled his feet, and opened the book as Sam took his place next to him.

"What are we reading?"

"King Arthur," Dean pronounced proudly. "It's about knights and princesses and finding grails and princesses."

"Oh, Sam mouthed, a little hesitant. "Can't we read Strega Nona?"

"No," Dean countered. "You'll love it. I'm Lancelot. See?" He pointed to proud knight on the cover. Dad is King Arthur. Uncle Bobby is Merlin, because he's so cranky. But Lancelot is the best knight in all England. Nobody can stop him."

Sam thought, finally asked. "Who am I?"

"You can be...Sir Galahad" Dean finally picked from the list of characters on the back page. "He's the purest knight. He even finds the grail!"

"What's that?"

"I dunno. But it's important. He can only find it, because he's the best."

"I thought Lancelot was the best."

"He is, but at fighting. Galahad is the best, because he's the most. He's the nicest knight, most noble. And that's you."

"But-"

"No buts, Sammy. You are. Now let me read to you." Dean ordered, turning to the first page, and refusing to fight over it anymore.

Time passed as children experienced it. Languid and in forever minutes, but suddenly Sam was also in school, and, before Dean realized what had happened, was able to read. His baby brother speeding ahead of all his classes by virtue of reading great piles of books and stories. Books borrowed and stolen here, returned to the wrong library there, Sam taking great pride in his child wallet full of library cards from each town they lived in, a mark of honor and prestige to show his background in reading.

As Sam began to read more to himself, Dean's reading own languished, slowing as it became harder to find the motivation that he had felt earlier. Where Sam couldn't read enough, Dean just couldn't find the interest. He still wanted to, but there was just no time anymore, and he had other lessons to learn.

The Winchesters were speeding off to Nebraska, Sam's head buried in a book on algae with Dean in the rare mood of sitting in the back with him.

John looked at them both in the rear view mirror, the top of Sam's head mirrored back as he burrowed through another stolen library book.

"When we get to Omaha, you know the drill, Dean."

"Yes, Sir," Dean replied automatically, toeing Sam's bookbag

"Cleaning and preparing our new base for two weeks. Dinner at eighteen hundred hours. Then evening exercises, then bed."

"Yes, Sir."

Sam flipped another page.

"You too, Sam. You help your brother."

The boy grunted a response. Dean elbowed him, and Sam piped up a "Yes, Sir," before disappearing back into the page.

"Sam wants me to read to him tonight," Dean added. "I've got a great book on Bullfinch's Mythology."

"No, Dean," Sam interjected. "I don't need you to read to me anymore. I can do it myself."

"But," Dean said softly. "This. I read to you all the time."

"But I can do it myself now," Sam stated firmly. "You don't have to read to me. I want to read to myself."

"You heard him, Dean. Let him alone."

"Okay," Dean acquiesced, feeling like something had been chopped out of him. Opened the bookbag with his hand, looked at what Sam had smuggled with them from the last library.

Sam slammed the bag shut with his leg. "No, Dean. My books," He stated, all possessive and aggressive. "You can't read them."

"I don't want to read them anyway," Dean snapped back, locking his chin against the back window, staring at the hypnotizing corn fields.

"Dean, leave the kid alone. It's bad enough I have to lug his books everywhere now," John said absentmindedly, "don't add to this. When we get to the motel, we'll all get a good night sleep, and you can practice in the morning while Sam sleeps in."

"Yes, sir... hey, Dad. Can we."

"Yes?"

"Well, there's this science fiction movie I want to see. It's called Robocop."

"No, Dean."

"But-"

"Dean, science fiction is really cheesy."

"It's got guns."

"You've got practice tomorrow. You don't need to see a movie for that."

Dean closed his eyes then. Letting Phil Collins wash over him, letting those things that he really wanted to like, to enjoy as Sammy enjoyed his books ebb away from him. He really wanted one of his brother's books, just to break up the monotony, but ultimately, Dean let that go too. He knew better than to want things for himself, that other kids would think it's stupid to like to read, to like scifi and fantasy, so he quit all of that as well.

Sam finally reading himself, and not wanting other to read to him, just meant that Dean had lost that final connection, and he was okay with that. Dean was a survivor and knew how to go without. There were just times when he wanted to be a reader, but Sam was the reader and the smart one and the nice one. And Dean was the protector and the best fighter. Even if there were times when he wanted to be the smart one and could get away with things like watching The Hobbit cartoon or reading. He was fine with where he was in life.


End file.
